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Karl Tunberg and his Contribution to Twentieth Century Cinema

A career in the art of cinema

This Website is devoted to Karl Tunberg and his career as a screenwriter, and offers information about the more than forty major motion picture screenplays of which he was either co-author or sole author. Members of Karl Tunberg's family are creators and caretakers of this Website, and are making every effort to present the most accurate information available. The details offered here about Karl Tunberg's life, professional activities, and film credits have been derived from records kept by the Writer's Guild of America, legal documents, conversations with Karl Tunberg himself, information provided by family members, and Karl Tunberg's unpublished and unedited written memoirs.

Karl Tunberg (extreme left) With Some of the Cast of
The Scarlet Coat
ca. 1955

Born in Spokane, Washington, on March 11, 1907, Karl Tunberg migrated at
an early age to California with and his older brother
William (who also became as screenwriter as an adult), and with his mother ‘Cenna’ (her maiden name was actually Centennial Independence Firebaugh, and she was so named because she was born on 4 July 1876, the first centennial 'birthday' of the United States of America!). Karl Tunberg's birth certificate (in the records of Spokane County Health District, State of Washington) records two children as having been previously born to Cenna. We only have information pertaining to William Tunberg, and have so far encountered no additional trace of this other sibling.

The family lived for a time in Santa Barbara,
but eventually settled in Los Angeles. There Karl attended Hollywood High
School, UCLA and USC. Karl Tunberg was destined to spend much of his life in Los Angeles, though he also lived and worked for many years in London, England. Largely in connection with his film making projects, Karl also traveled throughout Europe, visited China, Malaysia, Japan, and the West Indies. He was married three times and had five children. He served president of the Screen Writers Guild from 1950 to 1951.

His earliest
writings included short stories, and a novel entitled While the Crowd Cheers, which was published in 1935 by the Macaulay
Company. Very soon, Karl Tunberg turned his story-telling talents to
screenplays.Starting in 1937 Karl was on
contract as a screenwriter for Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation under DarrylZanuck. In the early 1940s Karl
Tunberg moved his seat of operations to Paramount Pictures. In the first phase of his career Tunberg typically collaborated with
other writers, especially with Darrell Ware, a deft composer of musical
comedies. Eventually (in the later 1940s, the 1950s, and the 1960s) Karl worked more frequently on his own. In the late 1940s
he made two films for Universal Studios, with a brief return to Fox (Love That Brute, 1950). This was
followed by a series of large films for MGM in the 1950s, including historical epics such as Beau Brummel, the Scarlet Coat, and Ben Hur, and two
big-production films for United Artists in the early 1960s (Taras Bulba [in collaboration with Waldo Salt], The Seventh Dawn). During
this period he occasionally functioned as producer as well as writer – as in
the case of Count Your Blessings
(1958). In the 1960s Karl also wrote screenplays for two major MGM productions, I Thank a Fool (1962)
and Where Were You When the Lights Went
Out? (1967).Finally, in the early 1970s
Karl Tunberg began writing segments for television series, but he never felt as
much at home in the television medium as he had in the creation of large-screen
motion pictures. The most famous screenplay authored by Karl Tunberg was probably the one he wrote for the 1959 epic, Ben Hur, but Karl Tunberg always told those close to him that he regarded Beau Brummel (1954) as his best work.

20. The Shocking Miss Pilgrim. George Seaton, 1946 (in some sources the release date is given as 1947): story by Ernest Maas and Frederica Maas, with contributions to screenplay by Karl Tunberg and Darrell Ware.
Directed
by George Seaton: Starring Betty Grable, Dick Haymes: Production company 20th
Century Fox

SYNOPSES, ANALYSES AND OTHER MATERIAL PERTAINING TO INDIVIDUAL SCRIPTS

Up in Central Park: A Musical Comedy

Karl Tunberg produced and wrote the screenplay for this film
adaptation of a Broadway musical play. The stage version was authored by
Herbert Fields and Dorothy Fields, with music by Sigmund Romberg, and produced
by Michael Todd.

The film, filled with songs, dances, and amusing scenes, is
a story of the Irish immigrants Rosie Moore (played by Deanna Durbin) and her
father Timothy, who almost immediately after their arrival at Ellis Island get
involved with the henchmen of the corrupt racketeer Boss Tweed (played by
Vincent Price). The Tweed ring is prepared to pay Timothy (and, we understand,
many other immigrants as well) to cast fake votes for Oakley,Tweed’s puppet
candidate for mayor of New York. But the connection between Tweed and the
Moores doesn’t stop there. Tweed fears that Rosie has overheard some of
his illicit schemes for the ‘improvement’ of Central Park. As it happens,Tweed
is uneasy about the spread of rumors, because he knows that John Matthews, a
crusading reporter for the New York Times, is determined to expose the illegal
actions of the Tweed ring. So Tweed decides to cultivate the Moores by making
Timothy the superintendent of Central Park with a high salary. John Matthews,
the ever inquisitive reporter, senses a new source of information in person of
the new Park superintendent, who is a simple man, unused to urban manners – and
has never even learned to read! Matthews also makes the acquaintance of
Rosie, with whom he falls in love. When Matthews entices from Timothy the
unsavory information that Tweed uses animals from the Central Park zoo to
supply food for his personal table, and Matthews publishes this information,
Tweed retaliates by removing Timothy from his position as Superintendent of
Central Park. Rosie intervenes personally with Tweed to restore her
father to his post, and from this point there develops a potentially romantic
connection between Tweed (who is married, but estranged from his wife) and
Rosie. Gradually Rosie is inclined towards Tweed and away from Matthews, especially
when Tweed uses his connections to promote Rosie to the operatic stage. This is
a fulfillment of dreams for Rosie, who has always won praise for her natural
ability in singing.

Meanwhile Matthews succeeds in bringing to Timothy’s
attention some of the stories of woe told by those who have been the victims of
Tweeds rackets. Timothy turns against Tweed and fears for his daughter’s
future. After several complications, Matthews and Timothy manage (with the aid
of a liberal supply of whiskey) to gain the confidence of Oakley, mayor of New
York in name only, but in fact puppet and mouthpiece for Tweed. Oakley
confesses all he knows, and with his help the New York Times publishes a wide
ranging exposé of the Tweed ring. All of Tweed’s associates flee, and Tweed
himself, though his precise intentions are never revealed, seems at the end to
be about to follow them when he urbanely takes his leave of Rosie and explains
that the big plans he had conceived for her cannot be fulfilled.

In the end, Rosie, her father, and Matthews are reunited.

The Broadway musical drama, which was a charming tale in its
own right and well adapted to the theatrical stage, differs in many ways from
the film version. We may view these differences partly as a result of the need
to adapt the story to the motion picture medium, but partly also as a
manifestation of the film writer’s interest in developing four lead characters
Rosie, Timothy, Tweed, and Matthews. The relationship between Rosie and
her father is highlighted early in the film, when we see them arrive as
immigrants and learn about Timothy’s love for Rosie’s mother, now deceased. In
the stage play, we meet Rosie and her father already established in New York
and the friendship between Rosie and Bessie (daughter of another man who works
for Tweed) is foregrounded. The character of Bessie is entirely missing in the
film, in which the attention of the audience is focused more directly on Rosie.
In the stage musical, moreover, the character of Matthews as adversary of Tweed
is paired with that of Matthews’ associate and fellow opponent of Tweed, the
cartoonist Thomas Nast, who worked for Harper’s Weekly. But Nast is missing
entirely in the film and the writer focuses on the persona of Matthews.
We note too that in the film the character of Timothy, Bessie’s father, is
greatly developed. We seem him struggle against his illiteracy – and actually
attend a school with six year old children in order to learn to read! We seem
him change from a supporter of Tweed, his patron from an early date, into an
adversary of Tweed, as Timothy he learns about Tweed’s racketeering and
twisting of the laws in order to increase his power and fill his coffers.
Perhaps the most significant difference in the two dramatizations may be found
in the love interests of Rosie. In the stage version, Tweed engineers Rosie’s
career as a singer, but Rosie is wooed away from Matthews by Peters, one of
Tweed’s satellites, and she actually marries Peters. In the film, Matthews’
rival for Rosie’s love is Tweed himself. The film version, therefore, not only
offers a somewhat more straightforward development, it also presents the
antagonism between the two males in a more fundamental light. The male leads
are the two essential antagonists in the battle over the exposure of political
corruption – as well as being contenders for the love of the same woman.
Consequently, the character of Tweed is much larger in the film
version. Tweed appears as a ruthless opportunist, who has no real thought
for the conventions of fair play -- yet he is almost likeable in his
never-failing politeness and urbanity, his imperviousness to verbal assaults
from others, his love for beauty, and his ability to retain composure in
adversity. The engaging and vivid film character of Tweed is partly due
to the skillful acting of Vincent Price, and in even larger part due to the
screenwriter, who almost entirely redesigned this character and created his
dialogue.

You Gotta Stay Happy: based on a serial by Robert Carson published in the Saturday Evening Post.

A well structured comedy with
skillful dialogue. Marvin Payne, played by James Stewart, is a World War II
army air force veteran who runs an air-freight business. On an overnight stay
in New York he becomes embroiled with newly married Dee Dee Dillwood, played by
Joan Fontaine, and her rather rigid and insensitive just-created-spouse. Dee
Dee, about to experience her wedding night, has sudden “cold feet” and decides
flee her new husband. Marvin Payne, thrown into the situation by chance
proximity, becomes Dee Dee’s avenue of escape. She persuades Marvin to take her
to California on his up-coming return flight. Once on board the plane, the plot
thickens. Dee Dee’s travelling companions are a cigar-smoking chimpanzee,
a corpse in a coffin, a embezzler on the run, and two newly married lovers.
In the course of the journey, romance develops between Marvin and Dee
Dee. During these adventures, Marvin has no idea that Dee Dee is a wealthy
heiress and that she actually married the man from whom she fled in New York.
When he learns the truth about Dee Dee, he tries to break off the romance, but
the force of circumstances and attraction prove too strong to resist.

The plot
and characters of “You Gotta Stay Happy” subvert some of the conventions so
typical of films of the same era. Contrary to what audiences might expect of
the macho hero (even in a comedy), Marvin always comes off second-best in
physical confrontations with his adversary, yet emerges the victor anyway
because of his empathy for others. And although Marvin scoffs at the idea of
being controlled by a woman (even by a woman he loves), it is a woman
nevertheless whose control of the situation shows him the way to success and
happiness.

The film
is based on a story by Robert Carson, published as a serial in the Saturday
Evening Post in April, 1948, under the title “You Got to Stay Happy.” Carson’s
story is well-written and funny. Karl
Tunberg’s adaptation of the story for the film medium was no less adept, and
involved some significant changes in plot and characterization.

The most
important of these changes pertain to the personal situation and character of
the heiress and the development of her relationship with Marvin.In the Post serial story the heiress is
engaged to the aristocratic and menacing Count Alexey, from whom she flees to
run away to California on Marvin’s plane. Alexey follows her to California and
confronts Marvin on arrival at Burbank.But romance develops between Marvin and the heiress en route, and on the
journey Marvin learns about her wealth, family and connections. Although Marvin
is highly attracted to the girl, he steadfastly resists the idea of marriage,
which she proposes, because he is unwilling to marry a woman who has all the
money, while he has none. Marvin’s resistance to marriage is only weakened and
finally broken, when his colleagues, who are stockholders in Payne Aire (this
is the spelling of the title of Marvin’s financially struggling air-freight
company in the Post serial), threaten to leave the company unless Marvin drops
his scruples and marries the heiress.

In Karl
Tunberg’s screenplay the artistocratic count has been replaced by the wooden
and insensitive fiancé, whom the heiress actually marries in the beginning of
the story. While the story in the Saturday Evening Post serial opens from
Marvin’s point of view as he flies into New York, makes his way to the hotel,
and is caught up in an encounter with the heiress and her suitor, the film
opens with the heiress’ story and her very reluctant wedding (forced by family
pressures) to her intended. The audience therefore is fully aware of her true
situation from the start, even while Marvin is kept in the dark about her
background and identity. Both in the
screenplay and in the Saturday Evening Post story romance develops between the
two on the flight to California. But in the screenplay, Marvin’s discovery
(during a sojourn at a farmhouse after an emergency landing in bad weather) of
the fact that the heiress is already married is the reason for an abrupt
breaking-off of the romance, and also for the heiress to discontinue her trip
to California with Marvin, and to find other means of transport to finish her
journey there. From this point on, the development and resolution of the love
story in the film differs markedly from that in the Post serial. After Marvin’s arrival in Burbank, he finds
that the stockholders in theair-freight
company are selling out, and that the hieress has actually bought a controlling
interest in the company. Marvin seeks her out to protest this action, but when
they actually meet, he cannot resist her. Her former marriage is annulled. She
and Marvin will tie the knot – with the hope that the air-freight company, now
supported by her wealth, will be able to flourish.

The
screenplay diverges from the original in a number of other ways. For example, a
forced landing near a farmhouse, followed by hospitality on the part of the
farmer towards his unexpected guests, is a feature of both versions.In the Saturday Evening Post story this event
is set in South Carolina: in the film it takes place in Oklahoma.The episode in the film is the occasion for
added comedy, when a group of native Americans, who are the only people in the
region wealthy enough to own a tractor, offer their help in towing Marvin’s
plane out of a mud-filled declivity, but only on condition that they can
witness the chimpanzee smoke a cigar!

George Brummell, an upstart cavalry officer, alienates prince George, the future King George IV, first by his outspoken criticism of military uniforms designed by the prince (for which he is expelled from his regiment), and then by his public attacks on the prince’s extravagant life-style and the state of the kingdom. Later, however, Brummell and the prince are reconciled, especially when Brummell becomes the prince’s supporter and advisor in his conflict with the William Pitt, the prime minister. Part of the conflict revolves around the prime minister’s pressure upon the prince to abandon his mistress, the catholic widow Mrs. Maria Fitzherbert, and to make a marriage that would promote political alliance with a foreign dynasty.
In the dramatization of the screenplay, the prince’s attachment to Mrs. Fitzherbert is paralleled with Brummell’s attraction to Lady Patricia Belham, who is engaged to the prince’s advisor Lord Edwin Mercer. The strong attraction felt for each other by Brummell and Patricia Belham simmers through a large part of the play and bursts into the open during a fox hunting expedition, when Brummell and Patricia (not unlike Dido and Aeneas) are separated from the rest of the party in the forest and begin to embrace passionately. Though the rest of the encounter is left to the imagination, there is little room for doubt as to what transpired. Lord Mercer, aware that something has happened between Brummell and Patricia on the hunting expedition, insists that he and Patricia should cancel their engagement. Patricia, however, vows never to see Brummell again. The engagement is restored. Although Patricia does not quite live up to the letter of her promise never to see Brummell (there are several subsequent meetings between Patricia and Brummell in the play), she chooses the safe path of marriage with Lord Mercer, and not with Brummell.
Caught up in the web of these complicated events, the friendship between the headstrong and emotional prince regent and the outspoken, high-living Brummell grows stronger. Brummell rises to eminence not merely as the prince’s favorite, but also the arbiter of fashion and elegance in the royal court, introducing new styles of clothing for men, including stove-pipe trousers and unpowdered hair. Events come to a head when Brummell devises a plan to help the prince gain independence from William Pitt, who, in order to keep the prince from assuming the role as regent, has been concealing the fact that the prince’s father, the aged king George III, has become insane. At Brummell’s urging, the prince decides to counteract Pitt by having his father officially declared incompetent. The prince is powerfully motivated by the hope that as regent he can change the marriage act, by which a royal prince is prohibited from marrying a Catholic, and thereby make a legal marriage with Mrs. Fitzherbert. Together with Brummell and several doctors, he pays a call on the old king, who not only fails to recognize his son, but actually attempts a violent attack upon him. As a result the king is declared insane.
But William Pitt is equal to the challenge: Parliament does not award the prince full powers as regent, even though it does grant him the right to alter the marriage law. When Brummell urges the prince to reject the conditions proposed by Pitt and to demand full rights, the prince flies into a rage and accuses Brummell of using his position to advance himself. The prince and Brummell are henceforth alienated. On the death of George III, the prince succeeds to the throne as George IV. Brummell lacking royal protection and pursued by creditors flees to Calais, where he sinks into poverty and ill health. But he adheres to his principles, even refusing to make money by publishing his memoirs, in fear that such memoirs might harm the king’s reputation. The new king learns of Brummells condition, and decides to visit him while in Calais on state business. The king’s visit is the setting for a reconciliation between the two former friends. But it comes late, because Brummell is deathly ill, and dies shortly thereafter.
The screenplay for the 1954 film was loosely based on the play by Clyde Fitch entitled Beau Brummell, which was first produced in Madison Square Theatre in New York in 1890. Also based on the same play was the silent film production Beau Brummell, which had appeared in 1924, starring John Barrymore and Mary Astor. This 1924 film version, which was directed by Harry Beaumont and built on a screenplay by Dorothy Farnum, differed considerably from the 1890 stage version in its development of plot and characters. However Karl Tunberg’s screenplay for the 1954 departs vastly from both previous dramatizations. First, the friendship between Brummell and the Prince Regent, which is tragically transformed into a rift between them, is more deeply developed and plays a much more central role in Tunberg’s 1954 version. Brummell’s involvement as a confidant and advisor in the Prince’s conflict with William Pitt and parliament, his role in the plot to have the old king George III certified by doctors as insane, and his advice pertaining to the Prince’s long-standing love affair with Mrs. Fitzherbert – all crucial factors in Karl Tunberg’s dramatic development of Brummell’s relationship with the Prince – are quite absent from the stage play and from the 1924 film. Moreover, the character of Lady Patricia Belham and the development of her romance with Brummell are entirely a development of Tunberg’s screenplay: Brummell’s love interests in the 1890 play and in the 1924 film are very differently portrayed and involve quite different female characters.

The epic story of Judah
Ben Hur was the invention of Lew Wallace, who had achieved prominence in mid
and late nineteenth-century America as a general in the American Civil War, as
governor of the territory (as it was then) of New Mexico, and as U.S. Minister
to Turkey. His novel entitled Ben Hur,
which tells a wide-ranging tale set in the ancient Roman world at the time of
Christ, proved to be a huge success. At the very end of the nineteenth century
(1899) a play based on Wallace’s novel had its premiere on Broadway. This play
ran for twenty years, not only in American cities, but also outside of America.
By the end of the 1920s there had been two silent films based on Wallace’s
epic, the second of which (released 1926) had great success and featured scenes
of epic grandeur -- especially the renowned chariot race – which rivaled those
in the classic 1959 epic, the subject of the present discussion.

The plot of the 1959
film differs in major ways from that of Wallace’s novel, and from the novel’s
dramatic and silent movie offsprings. Indeed the script itself which emerged as
a movie in 1959 was a tangled evolution involving years of rewrites, changes
and disputes (see Controversies over
Screen-Writing Credit). The summary presented here makes no attempt to trace
those changes: it is intended to be merely a convenient synopsis of the film
released in 1959.

The time is the early
first century A.D. The leading characters are Judah Ben-Hur, a Jewish aristocrat, Miriam, Ben Hur’s mother, and Tirzah, his
sister. Esther, the daughter of Ben Hur’s loyal servant Simonides, loves Ben-Hur,
although she is promised to another man.

Ben-Hur, devoted to the
freedom of the Jewish people finds himself at odds with Messala, the commander
of the Roman garrison in Jerusalem, who had been Ben-Hur’s friend in boyhood.
Open conflict arises when Gratus, the governor of Judaea is severely injured by
tiles accidentally falling from the roof of Ben-Hur's house. Ben-Hur is wrongly
blamed for the incident. His mother and sister are imprisoned and Ben-Hur is
condemned to be a galley slave.

Ben-Hur’s fortune
changes, however, when the galley in which has been condemned to row is sunk in
a sea battle with pirates. Ben Hur not only manages to escape, but saves the
Roman commander Quintus Arrius. Moreover, as they float on a fragment of
wreckage, Ben-Hur prevents Arrius (who wrongly believes the Romans had been
defeated in the sea fight) from committing suicide. They are rescued. Arrius
learns that the Romans won the battle, gets credit for the victory and adopts
(in Roman fashion) Ben-Hur as his son. But Ben-Hur is determined to return to
Palestine and to secure the liberty of his sister and mother.

On his way back to
Judaea he encounters Ilderim, an Arab noble, who has heard of Ben-Hur’s skill
with horses. Ilderim has splendid horses, which he requests that Ben-Hur drive
in a chariot race as part of official games in honor of Pontius Pilate, the new
governor of Judaea. Initially Ben-Hur rejects this request, even though the
project offers the potential of humiliating the powerful and arrogant Messala,
who himself competes in the circus. But Ben-Hur changes his mind after his
unsuccessful attempt to win from Messala the freedom of his mother and sister.
In fact, the two women had been infected with leprosy in prison, and the Romans
have them taken to the outskirts of the city. Esther, however, tells Ben-Hur
they have died. In so doing, she follows the wishes of the two women, who do
not want Ben-Hur to see them ruined by the disease, but to remember them as
they were.

Ben-Hur, consumed with
hate and desire to undermine Messala, enters the chariot race. Despite the fact
that Messala has armed his wheels with scythes, and by this means destroys
several of his opponents, Ben-Hur outmaneuvers Messala. As the two opponents
vie for the lead, Messala’s chariot overturns and he is dragged by his horses.
After Ben-Hur is crowned the victor, he visits the dying Messala, who reveals
to Ben–Hur that his mother and sister are not dead, but consumed with leprosy
and living in a secluded valley with other lepers.

Ignoring the danger of
catching the disease, Ben-Hur visits the valley of the lepers. There he
encounters Esther (whose love relationship with Ben-Hur has developed openly
since Ben-Hur’s return to Jerusalem), who, together with the mute Malluch, the
caretaker of her now blind and crippled father, is taking food to the lepers.
Despite Ben-Hur’s anger at being deceived by Esther, he yields to her pleas
that he not show himself to his mother and sister, who could not bear the idea
of Ben-Hur actually seeing them in their leprous condition. After watching in
hiding, while Esther gives them food, he accompanies Esther and Malluch back to
the city.

On their journey back
they encounter a crowd on a hill gathered to hear a sermon given by the
Nazarene. Although Ben-Hur is not convinced when he is told the Nazarene is the
“son of God”, he is reminded of a kind Nazarene man, who, ignoring the threats
of a Roman guard, had given Ben-Hur water, when Ben-Hur was being led to the
galleys years before. Moreover, after Ben-Hur’s return to Jerusalem as the
adopted son of Arrius, Esther had spoken to him of a young Nazarene
who preached a doctrine of love.

After his return to
Jerusalem from the valley of the lepers, Ben-Hur rejects the gift of Roman
citizenship offered by Pilate, and even, as an expression of his opposition to
Rome, gives up the ring of adoption received from Arrius. This is the occasion
for Esther to tell him again of the doctrine of forgiveness she has learned
from the Nazarene. Ben-Hur ignores the suggestion of forgiveness, but follows
Esther back to the valley of the lepers. There Miriam reveals to Esther that
Tirzah is dying. At this point Ben-Hur refuses to conceal himself any longer
from his mother and sister. Stepping forward, he embraces his mother, and
carries Tirzah back to the city, accompanied by Miriam. They follow Esther, who
wants to take them to the Nazarene.

But when they reach the
city they find people gathered for the trial of the Nazarene. Ben-Hur now
recognizes the Nazarene, and follows him to the actual crucifixion. After the
death of the Nazarene, there is an immense storm. The epic ends with a miracle –
Miriam
and Tirzah are freed from leprosy. As Ben-Hur embraces Esther, the viewer is
left with the impression that Ben-Hur will now follow the example of the
Nazarene in forgiveness of those who persecuted him.

As mentioned
in our synopsis of the plot, the screenplay which lies at the heart of the 1959
movie Ben-Hur was the product of a complicated
evolution involving years of rewrites, changes and disputes. These changes and
disputes gave rise to a very public and bitter controversy over screen writing
credit. Indeed, this controversy is most likely the reason for the fact that
out of the twelve categories in which Ben-Hur was nominated for Academy
Awards, the only category in which the award was not actually given was for
“Best Screenplay”.

From
the release of the film until the present day (the year 2015) the
overwhelmingly dominant point of view represented in the large literature
pertaining to this controversy has been that of the film’s director, William
Wyler. The views of Charlton Heston, who mostly took Wyler’s side, have played
a role too, though to a lesser extent than those of Wyler. Since the 1990s
another voice has come to the fore – that of the novelist Gore Vidal, who
worked on the script of Ben-Hur for a short period. The views of Sam Zimbalist,
the MGM producer, who had instigated the remake of Ben-Hur in the
mid-1950s, have been filtered through the various perspectives of Wyler,
Heston, and Vidal, since Zimbalist had suddenly died in mid-production and
before the public controversy over screenwriting credit. Once that controversy
had emerged, Wyler and Heston, of course, presented Zimbalist’s views as
entirely congruent with their own – as did Gore Vidal in a later period.

The statements
of Wyler and/or Vidal (and their accounts are not always in full agreement)
permeate not only the scholarly material and the formally published printed
books relating to the 1959 Ben-Hur movie, but also much of the material
on the subject available on the internet, such as the confused and often
inaccurate account of the screenwriting for the 1959 Ben-Hur movie
available on Wikipedia,
or some of the incredibly misinformed statements about the writing of the movie
to be found among the “Trivia”
on IMDb (Internet Movie Database).

But Karl
Tunberg, the writer who ended up receiving sole credit for the screenplay, also
had a point of view. Members of Karl Tunberg’s family, among whom are the
authors and custodians of this website, heard his point of view in detail and
often, and they believe it has considerable merits. It certainly deserves a
place in the historical presentation of how this epic film was made.

It was Sam
Zimbalist who originally chose Karl Tunberg as the writer for the project to
remake Ben-Hur. He did so after the very positive reception of the
well-crafted Beau Brummel in 1954, on which film Zimbalist had been the
producer and Karl the sole screenwriter. Although Karl had a special
inclination towards comedy and had built most of his earlier reputation on
comedies, Beau Brummel showed he could also write historical epics. And
right after Beau Brummel, Tunberg had scripted The Scarlet Coat,
another large historical drama. Did Zimbalist already have a script for Ben-Hur,
which he asked Karl Tunberg to rewrite? Or did he simply ask him to undertake a
new adaptation of Lew Wallace’s novel Ben-Hur? All evidence known to us indicates that Karl Tunberg wrote a new script
from scratch, and we can add that earliest scripts preserved in the Margaret
Herrick Library of the The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences bear
Karl Tunberg’s name. In any case, there is no doubt that the script completed
by Tunberg departed vastly from the novel (see, for example, the
discussion by Morsberger and Morsberger, Lew Wallace, p. 482). Tunberg
delivered his script to Zimbalist quite some time before Wyler had any connection
with the project. In fact, MGM shelved the Ben-Hur project, not because
anyone at that point objected to the script, but because the studio was in
financial trouble, and everyone could see that it would cost a lot of money to
make Ben-Hur. But the Ben-Hur project was finally revived by
Zimbalist, who managed to convince MGM that it was worth the financial risk. He
was prepared to bet that the revenues generated by Ben-Hur could solve
MGM’s financial problems. The majority of published sources indicate that
Zimbalist was dissatisfied with the script even at this stage and brought in
writers (notably Maxwell Anderson and S. N. Behrman) to revise it (see, just
for example, the discussions by Madsen, pp. 341-342; Heston, In the Arena,
p.186; Miller pp. 360-361; Herman, 394; Kaplan, p. 440).

Karl Tunberg,
however, always asserted that Zimbalist’s readiness for changes in the script
came after Wyler was induced to take on the project. A memo from Zimbalist (now
in the Margaret Herrick Library collection: MHL,Turner/MGM Scripts, 278-f. B-944) dated 14 March
1957 reveals Wyler already at work on the project and conducting a screen test
for Cesare Donova (even though Wyler did not sign a contract until September).
But the earliest indications we have found for the involvement of Anderson or
Behrman date from the second half of that year (these include versions of
screenplays and notes). Before Wyler joined the project Zimbalist seems to have
been sufficiently contented with the script to show it to the prestigious
directors he wanted to attract to the project. In fact, the only major dispute
between Karl Tunberg and Sam Zimbalist pertained not to the script, but to the
director. Karl openly favored Sidney Franklin, and was never enthusiastic about
Wyler. In the early stages of the project’s development Franklin, working with
Karl Tunberg and Sam Zimbalist, put a lot of time into planning his approach to
scene structure and emphasis, and submitted these plans in the form of a 200
page outline (material dating from 15 December 1954 to 3 August 1955: MHL,Turner/MGM Scripts, 274-f. B-919)But Zimbalist, when the
Ben-Hur project was revived again by MGM after a period of shut-down, was by
this time advocating William Wyler on the basis of Wyler’s very high
reputation, and the very young Wyler’s involvement with the 1926 silent film Ben-Hur.
Franklin morever became ill; so Karl reluctantly yielded to Zimbalist’s
preference for Wyler.

When Wyler
read the script, he hated it and demanded changes. Most sources agree that he
particularly objected to its “modernist” dialogue (although Jan Herman [A
Talent for Trouble, p. 394] makes all aspects of the script, including its
conception and characterization, equally the objects of Wyler’s aversion).
Wyler wanted dialogue that sounded slightly archaic, which he thought would
evoke a distant period in the past. Tunberg believed that, because the language
people spoke 2000 years earlier sounded contemporary to them, the modern
audience should relate to it as contemporaries would have done – since the film
in any case would necessarily be made in a modern language, not an ancient one.
This was a legitimate philosophical difference, and Karl Tunberg would never
have claimed that his dialogue had any sort of archaic flavor. Zimbalist,
anxious to bring the huge project to fruition, and equally anxious to have
Wyler direct the film (and to this end he had persuaded MGM to offer Wyler an
unprecedented salary), was ready to comply. By this time Karl Tunberg was
already embarking on another film project, Count Your Blessings, for
which he was not only the screenwriter, but also the producer. It is easy to
suspect – though we have found no concrete evidence for this – that Zimbalist
expedited Karl’s assignment to a new project on which he would also be producer
(a role which Karl at this stage of his life wanted to play more often,
together with being writer) so that Wyler could have a free hand to adapt the Ben-Hur
script to his liking unhampered by resistance from Karl Tunberg, a resistance
that would have been inevitable had Karl been on the Ben-Hur set while
the film was being shot in Italy. In any case, Karl trusted Zimbalist, with
whom he was on very good terms, to prevent radical changes to the script.

It was at this
point that S. N. Behrman and Maxwell Anderson were brought into the project. Notes
by Behrman on previous versions of the script, along with comments by Zimbalist,
dating from December 1957 are preserved in the Margaret Herrick Library
collection (MHL, Turner/MGM
scripts, 281-f. B-962). In the same collection are several drafts of the
script dating from late 1957 or early 1958 that include, in addition to Karl
Tunberg’s name, the names of either Behrman or Anderson (MHL, Andrew Marton
Papers, 2-f. 19; MHL, Turner/MGM
scripts, 280-f. B-954; 280-f. B-955; 281-f. B-963;282-f. B-964;282-f. B-965).There are also revisions by Karl
Tunberg alone dating from early 1958 (MHL,Turner/MGM
scripts, 282-f. B-971;283-f. B-972; 283-f. B-973). Changes in the structure
of the script seem to have been quite small. It is very difficult to isolate
which revisions come from Behrman or Anderson, but probably they contributed –
in response to earlier criticisms of ‘modernist’ dialogue – a more
archaic-sounding diction. Indeed, Charlton Heston reports that by the time he,
with Wyler’s approval, was hired to play the part of Ben-Hur, the language
seemed to be excessively “medieval” (Heston, In the Arena, p. 186).

Wyler is said
not to have read the revised script until early in 1958. He apparently did so
when he was actually on the plane to Italy to begin work on making the film. He
rejected this version of the script too, but (if we believe the statements of
Heston) he did so for reasons more or less opposite to those which had caused
him to dislike the earlier version of the screenplay. Now the dialogue was too
archaic. Zimbalist is said to have agreed. More rewriting was needed – and
quickly. At this point Gore Vidal was brought onto the project. There is
disagreement in many of the secondary sources as to whether he was hired before
Christopher Fry, or at the same time. But the correspondence of Wyler himself
kept in the Margaret Herrick Library collection resolves the issue. Vidal
worked as a writer on the set from 23 April 1958 to 24 June 1958; but Fry was
on the set from 29 April 1958 to 19 January 1959 (MHL, William Wyler Papers, 2-f.21). Vidal had been
asked somewhat earlier by Wyler (perhaps in late 1957?) to participate in Ben-Hur,
but had refused. In 1958, however, Vidal changed his mind, and he started
working with Wyler on the set in Italy to revise the screenplay’s dialogue.

Gore Vidal’s
role in the revising of the screenplay of Ben-Hur came under the
spotlight in the 1990s as a result of several documentaries and articles in
newspapers and magazines. Controversy arose when Vidal, who by the 1990s was
interested in publicizing how gay men had managed to survive in the artistic
world of the 1950s - a period, of course, when gay people in all walks of life
were subject to incredibly unfair discrimination - claimed to have rewritten a
crucial scene featuring Ben-Hur and Messala to include subtle hints of a
homosexual relationship between them. Moreover, as Vidal tells it in the Celluloid
Closet (1996) and elsewhere, he had discussed this approach to the scene
beforehand with Wyler, who had not rejected the idea outright, but warned him
to keep it toned down.

In fact, the claims about Vidal’s participation
seem to have grown over time. In Axel Madsen’s 1973 biography of Wyler, the
so-called “authorized” biography, Vidal’s role is not even mentioned. But
in the biographies of Wyler by Jan Herman (1995) and Gabriel Miller (2013)
Vidal’s account is reported, though both authors agree that Wyler himself in
later years had no recollection of a conversation with Vidal about the Ben-Hur
and Messala scenes. Vidal, moreover, asserted in the 1990s that he
substantially rewrote the first half of the screenplay, and in more than one
source he is stated to have changed the presentation of the reunion of Ben-Hur
and Messala from one scene into two. Indeed, in the well-respected documentary
entitled Ben-Hur: The Making of an Epic, narrated by Christopher
Plummer, Gore Vidal is styled as “author” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChPXI1gJ-yo). The
presentation of Gore Vidal as a major (or the major) contributor to the Ben-Hur
screenplay is echoed in all the main biographies of Vidal, and is reinforced by
an article by film historian F. X. Feeney (“Ben-Gore: Romancing the Word with
Gore Vidal”), who argues, after examining “the shooting script” saved in the
library of the Motion Picture Academy (Margaret Herrick?), that the whole
conception of scenes in which Ben-Hur and Messala face each other individually,
and especially the reunion scene in involving the throwing of javelins (which
takes place before the two are alienated), is that of Vidal.

We have examined in
the Margaret Herrick library multiple copies of the Ben-Hur script in various
stages of revision, and it is difficult to isolate one single ‘shooting
script’. All the scripts are dated. All, except for one folder, bear the name of
Karl Tunberg, and in a few drafts of late 1957 and early 1958 the names of
Behrman or Anderson are added to that of Tunberg (see above). Vidal’s name is
absent (as is that of Fry). The copy
which lacks specific indication of author is an incomplete script (MHL, Charlton Heston Papers, 5-f.49)
containing 160 pages of changes made from 30 June 1958 (after Vidal had left
the project) to 26 June 1959. Much of the material in this folder is identical
to the rewrites made by Tunberg himself in the final stages (see below). There is no
doubt that Feeney had immersed himself in the works of Vidal before studying
the script (or scripts?), but his assertion of Vidal’s conception and
authorship of scenes dramatizing the relationship between Messala and Ben-Hur
(in the form they were shot) is hard to verify. We should point out that the
reunion scene between Messala and Ben-Hur involving javelin throwing is already
present in early versions of the script produced long before 1958. Moreover,
the whole conception of the relationship between Messala and Ben-Hur (without
the homo-erotic overtones which Vidal undoubtedly did see in this scene, when
he worked on the set) is actually typical of Tunberg. This subplot and
basic conflict – a deep friendship between two leading male characters that is
compromised by political factors – is employed by Karl Tunberg in other films:
consider the relationship between Brummell and the prince-regent in Beau
Brummell, or the relationship between Ferris and Ng in The Seventh Dawn.
Charlton Heston, who was a partisan of William Wyler during much of the stormy
process of making Ben-Hur, asserts
that Vidal rewrote an early scene between Ben-Hur and Messala, but insists that
it was clear to everyone, after one rehearsal of this scene, that the scene had
to be re-done, and Vidal was off the film. Heston also recalls (correctly) that
Vidal was on the film for a very short time, and he characterizes Vidal’s claim
that he substantially rewrote the first half of the script as “incredible”
(Heston, In the Arena, p. 187).

When Vidal
left the project in late June 1958, the only writer left to work on the set was
Christopher Fry. Heston, in his autobiography, is almost effusive in his praise
of Fry’s rewriting of the screenplay’s dialogue. Much of this work consisted of
retaining a slightly archaic quality to the diction, while retreating from the
excessive and stilted archaism which had infiltrated earlier attempts to revise
the “modernist” dialogue. An example quoted in numerous sources was Fry’s
changing of the too “modern” (from the viewpoint of Wyler and Heston) “How was
your dinner” into “Was the food not to your liking” (one of the few dialogue
changes which actually remained in the final drafts of the script). There
is consensus among Wyler’s biographers that Wyler admitted Fry’s changes were
not extensive in quantity. Heston agrees, adding that Fry’s changes were seldom
structural, but nearly always linguistic.

A major force
which had restrained and controlled the considerable antagonisms among the
leading figures in the Ben-Hur project was suddenly removed in November
1958, when Sam Zimbalist died of a heart attack in Italy while overseeing the
film’s production. We should note in passing that the relationship between
Wyler and Zimbalist in all the biographies of Wyler and Vidal, as well as in
Heston’s autobiography, appears to be one of consensus and concord. Karl
Tunberg’s memoirs, however, suggest this relationship was eroded by constant
discord and dissension – that Zimbalist constantly had to exert all of his
diplomatic skills to keep the project on track. It will not be out of places to
note a surviving letter from J. J. Cohn to Zimbalist’s widow dated 28 November
1958 which also hints a difficult relationship between Zimbalist and Wyler
during the actual shooting of the film (MHL, Sam and Mary Zimbalist Papers,1-f.9). Be this as it may, with
Zimbalist gone, preliminary shooting on Ben-Hur finished with Wyler in
command.

In 1959 Karl Tunberg was still involved with the
production of Count Your Blessings. By the early part of this year,
Tunberg was back in Los Angeles and, along with other MGM executives and Wyler
himself, he viewed screenings of rough cuts of Ben-Hur. There was
agreement among all parties concerned that many of the scenes – and these
mainly comprised the scenes which had been reworked by Fry and others – were
unsatisfactory. Karl describes the screenings and their aftermath in his unpublished and unedited memoirs. Karl's account shows Wyler as chastened and ready to
re-do much of the work.The need for
re-working had been clear to MGM executives from the beginning of that year,
and perhaps even earlier -- as is indicated by a letter from J. J. Cohn to
Zimbalist’s widow dated 13 January 1959 (MHL, Sam and Mary Zimbalist Papers,1-f.9).

Karl Tunberg
had been off the Ben-Hur project from
5 May 1958 to 14 April 1959 (dates are specified a letter of 6 July 1959: MHL,William Wyler Papers, 2-f.21), but he had continued, at Zimbalist’s request, to contribute material
to Ben-Hur (for more on this, see below). Now he agreed to rewrite
Wyler’s changed material and to compose some added scenes, all of which went
into the final version of Ben-Hur – something which is clearly confirmed
in the Writers Guild’s position statement made after arbitration. Many of these
changes amounted to restoring what had been in place before Wyler’s
interventions in the script while on the set. These changes and restorations,
however, receive no mention in virtually all of the large literature published
since the release of Ben-Hur about the controversies over authorship of
the screenplay.

Wyler,
supported by Heston, still wanted Fry to get co-credit for the screenplay
because of the work Fry had done while on the set. For a brief period in 1959
Karl Tunberg, whose first impulse was usually to avoid conflicts, seems to have
been willing to compromise with Wyler and to accept joint credit (this is suggested
by a letter of Wyler dated 8 July 1959: MHL, William Wyler Papers, 2-f.21). But Karl soon changed his mind, either because
the Writers’ Guild officials, who were very sensitive in this period about
their recently won rights to determine and protect writers’ credits, urged him
not to yield, or because he decided himself that agreeing to a joint credit for
Ben-Hur was unfair.

In his
memoirs, Karl himself makes no mention of his momentary readiness to yield, and
in any case his resolve must have been strengthened when the Writers Guild
initially investigated the claim and pointed out that the contributions of Fry
which had survived in the final version of the screenplay were not nearly
enough to warrant co-credit. Guild rules required a minimum of 25% of a
finished product to be the work of a writer entitled to co-credit. But Wyler
was determined to press his case, and the matter was submitted to a formal
arbitration of the Screen Writers Guild. The Guild’s arbitration board
(consisting of experienced writers, each working without knowledge of the
others) unanimously awarded full and sole credit for the script to Karl
Tunberg. Wyler appealed the decision – offering to submit new material. After
hearing the appeal, and inspecting the “new” material, the Guild reiterated its
arbitration decision: the final product was overwhelmingly the work of Karl
Tunberg, and he must be awarded sole screenwriting credit. When Christopher Fry
learned of the Guild’s arbitration, he indicated that he was prepared to accept
it.

Wyler reacted
by launching a publicity campaign against Tunberg, implying that the Guild’s
decision was biased and corrupt, since Tunberg had been a past president of the
Guild. Wyler, moreover, enlisted help from every quarter in his wide circle of
Hollywood contacts. Among the material Wyler left to Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (currently in the Margaret
Herrick Library) one can even find a letter to the Guild written by Sam
Zimbalist’s widow dated 2 November 1959, in which she urges the Guild to
reconsider and suggests that her late husband would have favored a shared
credit (MHL, William Wyler Papers, 2-f.21).
While this letter may have been a
spontaneous expression from Ms. Zimbalist, we wonder what role J. J.
Cohn, a good friend of Wyler, who had befriended Ms. Zimbalist since her
husband’s
death (a considerable part of their voluminous correspondence is
available in
the Herrick Library) could have had in soliciting this letter.

In response to this pressure, the Guild
published a formal statement, which reiterated the method and results of the
arbitration itself, and which accused Wyler of attempting to undermine the
unbiased nature of the arbitration process. We reproduce here the full
statement of the Guild, published in the Hollywood
Reporter, on Friday, November 20, 1959 (p. 5).

On 24 November
1959 Wyler published in Hollywood Variety
a response to the Guild’s statement published four days earlier. While
accepting the Guild’s first ruling that Tunberg was the only writer who had
written a complete screenplay for the 1959 version of Ben-Hur, Wyler rejected the second and third rulings. In other
words, Wyler denied that Tunberg had continued throughout the filming to
contribute material that remained in the final product (ruling 2), and that
Tunberg alone had done the rewrites needed for the final four months of retakes
(ruling 3). This response by Wyler is surprising because it is so much at odds
with other evidence. Perhaps in anger and in the heat of the controversy, Wyler
had actually forgotten some of the details of recent events. Whatever the explanation,
in Wyler’s own correspondence there is clear allusion to the fact that Tunberg
even while “off assignment” in late 1958 had been called upon to contribute
script material (MHL, Sam and Mary Zimbalist Papers, 1-f.5; William Wyler Papers, 2-f.21)! Moreover there are five different sets of retakes still saved in
the Herrick Library dating from April to July 1959. Each of them consists of very
extensive handwritten rewrites on a section of script, and a fair copy which
incorporates these handwritten changes into a clean copy of revised script. The
handwriting is exclusively that of Karl Tunberg, and Karl Tunberg is the only
authorial name specified on each of these sets of rewrites (MHL,Turner/MGM
scripts, 286-f.B-1004; 286-f.B-1005; 286-f.B-1006; 286-f.B-1007; 286-f.B-1008).
A collection of retakes left to the same library by William Wyler
contains suggestions by Wyler, but virtually no other retake material (MHL, William Wyler Papers, 2-f.17; 3-f.33).

Wyler’s
campaign, however, had its effect. As mentioned at the beginning of our
narrative – “Best Screenplay” was the only category in which Ben-Hur was
nominated for an Academy Award, but did not receive it. And when Heston
received his Academy Award for “Best Leading Actor”, he made a point of
publicly thanking Christopher Fry for Fry’s work on the script. Heston’s speech
provoked the Screen Writers Guild to send Heston a letter accusing him of
ignoring the Guild’s fair process and trying to denigrate Tunberg’s reputation.
But the damage had been done.

Was the
Guild’s arbitration corrupt, as Wyler and Heston (and later Vidal) implied, and
influenced by the fact that Karl Tunberg some years earlier had been a Guild
president? Such an assumption would require us to ignore the anonymous nature
of the arbitration process itself, and to pay no attention to the fact that
people involved in movie production in Hollywood in the late 1950s, including
many or most of the screenwriters, would have been much more intimidated by
powerhouses like Wyler than by a former president of the Screen Writers Guild,
as the Academy Awards of that year showed! The script for Ben-Hur may
indeed not have pleased all the people involved in the project all of the time,
but the Screen Writers Guild’s investigation and arbitration clearly offers us
the best final judgement. The final script for Ben-Hur – the script that
was actually represented in the epic film that was released in theaters – was
overwhelmingly the work of Karl Tunberg.

… The film < Beau
Brummell> was finished…. Sam… asked, How about writing Ben-Hur? I see it as a great
spectacle.He went on describing his
vision of the planned film before I could say anything.

Finally
I got a word in.Sam, I said, I’ve never
read the book.

Neither
have I, he said. What’s that go to do with it?

At the
time I thought he was joking. Later on I learned he was telling the truth. He
had not read the book!

It’s a classic, he explained. Probably
nobody has read it. We can do what we
want with it!

Sam
Zimbalist was a man of strong likes and dislikes, and he wasn’t shy about
letting the world know what they were. His career was the traditional American
success story – a poor, uneducated boy makes it to top producer at MGM. He was
aggressively and blatantly American; he was prejudiced against anything
foreign, particularly Britain, which he regarded as decadent and effete.I loved England and wanted to live there, and
I used to argue with Sam, trying to make him change his viewpoint at least a
bit…

(typescript
pp. 311-313 )

[About early 1958 (with reference to events in 1956-1957)….]

….
While I was still writing the script <of Ben-Hur>,
I’d had many discussions with Sam about who was capable of directing Ben-Hur. Sam had consistently favored William
Wyler, who had a long and distinguished record. I had been for Sidney Franklin
of Good Earth fame. But now Sam was
bad-mouthing his own choice.

I was
disturbed. The director could destroy a film, and I could not understand Sam’s
light-hearted attitude. He laughed at my troubled face.

“Not to
worry,” he said. He tapped his temple with a wise forefinger. “I’ve got five
second units working behind Wyler, mopping up. We call them second units, but
the chipmunks running them are first unit. For instance, Richard Thorpe
directed the naval battle.”

I was
amazed. “Jesus! He’s one of the best.”

“And
the big chariot race was shot by a friend of yours, matter of fact. You recommended
him long ago.”

“Andrew
Marton?”

“The
same…. ”

Sam ran
the chariot race for me. “Great, isn’t it?”

I had
to agree.

“Every
time I run it,” Sam continued, “I feel like getting a bet down on Messala, but
of course I know the race is fixed for Ben-Hur.”

“What
about Wyler?” I asked. “Doesn’t he object?”

Sam
dismissed Wyler with a wave of his hand…

I found
later that Sam was glossing over the trouble. Wyler did object. Fiercely. He and Sam engaged daily in violent quarrels,
and the constant battling took its toll. Sam enforced his way of shooting but,
as it turned out, at a terrible cost….

(typescript pp. 314-314D)

[events of 1958-1959]

“… Sam Zimbalist was dead.He died on the set as had had lived. There
were no more particulars, but that was particular enough. Sam was dead….

The
shooting on Ben-Hur was finished with
Wyler in command. I was completely engaged with my production <on Count Your Blessings>, but I heard
ominous rumors that Wyler was tampering with the script of Ben-Hur. He had hired Christopher Fry to make changes as they went
along. I was alarmed, but there was nothing I could do except hope that the
rumors were exaggerated, as rumors usually are. I didn’t get a chance to see
for myself until some time later, back in Hollywood, I ran the rough cut of Ben-Hur with Siegel and Wyler.

It was
awful!

I am
speaking of the footage shot by Wyler himself. The work of the second unit
directors like Thorpe and Marton was magnificent, but it was nullified by
Wyler’s surprisingly inferior stuff. He was sufficiently chastened, however, to
agree to retakes and added scenes which I would write. Again I found myself
working night and day, and after four months we assembled a rough cut. It was
essentially what we had before Wyler came up with his “variations”.

What we
saw now was a film, which was destined to make motion picture history…”

“….Wyler was pleased and clearly willing to
take bows.

A few
days later he dropped in at my office. The fact that he did the “dropping” was
significant. Directors of Wyler’s stature did not go to other guys’ offices:
other guys came to them. Wyler strolled in with an amiable face that in no way
suggested the contentious fellow who had haunted Sam’s last days.

“I
guess we’ve got a winner,” he said. “ The word is out – we’ve got a big one.”

“I hope
so. Sit down, Willie.”

He did.
“As you may have heard, Sam and I had our differences, but that’s water under
the bridge. I hope wherever he is, he knows we’ve got a hit.”

I said
nothing. I was sure he knew Sam and I had been close friends, and that I was on
Sam’s side.

Again I
said nothing. I was pretty sure now what he wanted. He came out with it. “The
writing credit on Ben-Hur – you
certainly wouldn’t object to sharing it with a writer like Chris.”

“I
wouldn’t?”

“Your
name first, of course.”

“That’s
good of you,” I said, “ in view of the fact that I wrote the only script ever
written: and the retakes, and added scenes.”

“Look,”
he said, “nobody is putting you down, but certainly you can be generous with a
writer of Fry’s caliber.”

“I
can’t even if I wanted to,” I told him. “The Guild adjudicates writing credits
– has for years. The rule is: a writing credit should be a true and accurate
statement of authorship. By that measurement Fry’s contribution is zero.”

He got
mad. He jumped up and shouted. “You can’t judge a writer’s contribution by a
word count! I’ll protest to the Guild!”

“Be my
guest.”

He went
out, slamming the door.

He did protest to the Guild, and the
arbitration machinery went to work. Writing credits in dispute are determined
by three arbiters drawn from a panel of experienced, qualified writers. Each
arbiter has no knowledge of the other two. The hold no meetings or conferences.
They arrive at their decisions independently and adjudicate the credits solely
on the merits of the written material. In the case of Ben-Hur, the unanimous decision of the three judges was that the
sole screenplay credit was to be awarded to me.

Wyler
protested this decision and was then heard in a full meeting of the Executive
Board of the Guild. He now claimed there was additional material which appeared
in the film, but which had not been submitted to the arbitration committee. He
was invited to submit this material…After painstaking examination, it was discovered that this material was
not new; that it had – except for minor variations – been previously submitted
to the arbiters, and that, in essence, it was the same material that I had
written….

The day
after the decision Wyler once again appeared in my office. He didn’t “drop” in
this time. He stormed in before the secretary could announce him.And he yelled at me: “You’ve got the credit,
but it won’t do you any good! I’ll see to that! I’ll see that the world knows
you don’t deserve it!”

He certainly did his best, or
perhaps I should say his worst. He hired publicists to spread the word that I
had “robbed” a fellow writer, and personally bad-mouthed me whenever and
wherever he could.The result was
unpleasant. Many people climbed on Wyler’s band-wagon, and appeared eager to
‘yes’ his comments. At a preview of Ben-Hur
in Denver I found myself sitting alone, while previously friendly
executives pointedly took seats at a distance from me. Not all Hollywood was so
fickle, however. Writers like James Webb, Dan Taradash, Ed Hartmann, and others
were outspoken in their support… “

Christine Allison, a Canadian doctor, is convicted of having given to her terminally ill lover an overdose of painkillers. Released after having served two years in prison for manslaughter Christine changes her surname to Godden, but fails in all attempts to find employment. Finally she responds to a mysterious call from someone who promises help. Her benefactor turns out to be Stephen Dane, the highly capable public prosecutor who had secured her conviction for manslaughter. He needs a caregiver for his mentally ill wife Liane, whose history of derangement is connected with her family past in Ireland, and an automobile accident in which Liane was traumatized and her father apparently killed. Stephen, whose seeking out Christine was no accident, believes that she will succeed where other caregivers have failed. As a trained doctor Christine fully understands medical treatments, but, having been deprived of her credentials as a doctor, cannot provide any certification that would be needed by anyone who wanted to have Liane committed – and Stephen is determined that his wife will live at home and never be committed. Christine, though at first unwilling to be associated in any way with the man largely responsible for her time in prison, ends up accepting the employment in Dane’s country house.
It is no easy assignment. Liane is whimsical, erratic, and subject to sudden outbursts which publicly embarrass her husband. She loses herself in imagined memories of growing up in an idyllic environment in Carach, Ireland, with her father (her mother had died of a fall from a precipice while Liane was still a child). Sometimes Liane seems to love Stephen jealously, accusing him of an affair with Polly, a local pub owner. At other times she says she is prisoner in Stephen’s house, and was taken by Stephen from her family home against her father’s will. Her public assertion that her husband doesn’t “sleep with” her contrasts with a scene in which Christine overhears Stephen being vehemently, and even violently, rebuffed when he tries to gain access to Liane’s room at night. Added to the kaleidoscope of confusing impressions are Liane’s flirtatious meetings with the Irish man who takes care of Stephen’s horses.
A turning point occurs when Liane is away at the dentist’s office and Stephen is away on business. Christine, who has stayed in the house, has a visitor. He is Ferris, Liane’s father! He is not dead at all! Ferris had come in the hope of seeing Stephen privately, and he tells Christine that the fiction of his death is something he has agreed on with Stephen. Aside from stressing the need to maintain Liane’s ignorance, he tells Christine nothing more, but leaves to catch a plane.
Christine takes matters into her own hands. She meets Liane privately, tells her that her father is not dead, and suggests they go to Ireland to find her father in Carach and effect a real reunion. After the shock of revelation, Liane agrees. But the remedy is worse than the disease. When they find Ferris’ house, they find him in a drunken stupor with a mistress, and Ferris openly declares that his daughter should return to her husband. He doesn’t want her living with him, and rejects any responsibility for her. Liane flees madly and is injured in a fall.
Stephen, who has followed them to Ireland, in a tense scene reveals to Christine what he insists is the true origin of his connection with Ferris and Liane. Stephen had been involved with prosecuting Ferris (a crooked dealer in horses) in Belfast. Ferris had tried to bribe Stephen, offering him even his own daughter, who had come to Stephen’s rooms ill and only too glad to escape her father. When charges were dropped against Ferris, he began to visit and harass Stephen. It cost Stephen much money to keep him away.
The viewer is confronted with several surprising twists as the plot moves to its denouement. Liane, being treated for her injuries, is given medication by Christine in strict accord with the doctor’s instructions. But Christine wakens the next morning to learn that Liane has died in the night. The bottle of medication is missing from the place where Christine had left it, and it turns out that Liane died of an overdose. When Christine’s past association with “mercy killing” is revealed at the inquest, suspicion obviously falls upon her. But Christine, driven to a fury and protesting her innocence, accuses Stephen of framing her, suggesting that his reason for hiring her in the first place was connected with a plan to do away with Liane. But all of these suspicions evaporate when Ferris is proven to have visited Liane’s room, even after Christine, having given Liane the prescribed medication, had retired.
The trapped Ferris tries in vain to push his way out of the inquest room insisting he didn’t kill his daughter, claiming he had gone that night merely to warn his daughter keep away from him. According to Ferris, his daughter herself had taken the overdose; Ferris had taken away the bottle to put Stephen, his adversary, in a difficult situation. When the police arrive to arrest Ferris, he retreats backwards into a balcony, where he suddenly falls through a rotten fence to his death.
We are left in ambiguity at the end as to whether Ferris actually gave the fatal overdose, or whether Liane took it herself. A viewer who pays attention to Ferris’ pathological rejection of responsibilities, and several hints in the story that Ferris caused the death of his wife (Liane’s mother), who was burdensome to him and whom he hated, might be inclined to suspect that Ferris actually gave the overdose.
At the end, Stephen and Christine are reconciled and go off together. The viewer conjectures their relationship may become closer.

The screenplay for this film was adapted from a novel by Audrey Erskine Lindop, which was originally published in 1957 under the title Mist over Talla. The screenplay differs from the novel in fundamental ways. Most importantly, the character of Christine, a defrocked doctor suspected of “mercy killing,” and the psychological murder mystery surrounding Liane’s death are entirely creations of the screenplay.
In the novel the story is narrated from the first-person perspective of Harriet Godden, whose hopes of founding an interior decorating business are frustrated, and who decides to answer an advertisement for a position as live-in caregiver for a country landlord’s wife. The character of the wife, Liane, is similar to that of the corresponding figure in the film. She is young, mentally deranged, subject to sudden shifts of mood, dangerously attracted to speed in cars, and apt to run away from home on sudden impulses. As in the film, Liane fantasizes about an idyllic childhood in Ireland with her father. In the novel, however, Liane’s father is simply an impecunious, irresponsible alcoholic, who has no implied connections to illegal or criminal activities
Liane’s husband in the novel, Major “Lead” Steward, a retired soldier and a farmer by profession, is utterly different from the corresponding figure of Liane’s husband in the film. But not unlike Stephen Dane in the film, Stewart pretends that Liane’s father had died in a car accident in which Liane had also received injuries, in order to discourage Liana’s impulses to go back to Ireland. In the novel also, this falsehood is exposed.
Harriet finds herself falling in love with Liane’s husband and this developing love interest is much more overt in the novel than in the film. When Harriet decides to take Liane to Ireland to confront her with her real past, Liane becomes even more deranged, and takes a car on a catastrophic rampage, in which Major Stewart is injured.
Finally Harriet leaves her care-giver’s position. Sometime later she learns from a newspaper article that Liane died from an accidental fall. Although Stewart later pays Harriet a visit, the two are never united.

Michael Keon set his novel entitled The Durian Tree in Malaya during the ‘Emergency’ - a guerrilla war fought between the British and Commonwealth military forces and the jungle
fighters of the Malayan Communist Party. The conflict lasted
from 1948 to 1960, but the novel itself is set some time in the mid-1950s.Keon presents a rich cast of characters: Ng,
a communist insurgent leader, who is capable of committing any atrocity to
promote what he seems to hold as a quasi-religious cause; Candace the young and
beautiful sister of Greta, who is married to Trumpey, the British governor;
Dhana, a young Eurasian women with a complicated love-life, who is devoted to
the cause of the Malayan people and is perceived by the British as pro-communist;
Ferris, the wealthy Australian planter and entrepreneur, who together with Ng
worked in the underground against the Japanese occupiers of Malaya in the
second world war; and a whole cast of colorful but lesser personalities. Keon
skillfully uses stream-of-conscious narration and vivid descriptions to draw
the reader into the minds of his characters and to make them feel the hot,
damp, vegetation-scented environment of Malaysia. He eschews chronological
narration, relying instead on flashbacks, the memories of characters and
interrupted narrative to bring his story to life.

Keon’s story begins with Candace
taken captive by Ng, forced to trek through jungle to an insurgents’ hideaway,
subjected to horrific scenes as Ng kills or wounds those who oppose him. Ng
plans her death as retaliation for certain British government actions – the
causes of which are fully explained later. Before this can happen, however the
reader is brought back to Candace’s pre-captivity life in the governor’s
Residency, as sister to his wife. The reader learns about her past, her
education in Europe, and sees her party-filled life in Malaya, and learns about
Ferris and his former wartime association with Ng against the Japanese. The
middle part of the narrative includes a grenade attack on a night club by
communist insurgents, Dhana’s actions to organize the people to conduct a demonstration
against a curfew on use of bicycles (the Malayan working person’s only form of
transport) after 7:30 p.m., her opposition to the British government's
destruction of a village thought to be a haven for terrorists and resettling of
its inhabitants. Meanwhile Candace becomes good friends with Ferris, with
incipient romance implied. She also has some sympathy with the cause of the
Malayans. Then Dhana is arrested for violating emergency regulations: the
charge against her is a capital one, because live grenades were found concealed
in a durian fruit she was carrying on her bicycle. The story moves ahead to Dhana’s trial in
court, then back slightly in Candace’s mind to the period that followed Dhana’s
arrest, in which period her friendship with Ferris had ripened. When the reader
returns to the trial, Dhana is sentenced to death, but the narrative leaves
Dhana at this point

Here the story moves to a period
that comes after the events narrated in the opening. Ng’s goal had been to hold
Candace hostage for the feeing of Dhana, and to kill Candace, if Dhana was
executed. But this plan has been thwarted by Ferris, who has tracked down Ng and
has freed Candace. The two of them, holding Ng captive, are trekking back to
Ferris’ bungalow. After many dangers they succeed in reaching their destination.
Ng tries to escape, but is shot and the story ends in his dying perspective.

Karl Tunberg’s screenplay entitled
The Seventh Dawn recasts this plot
into a chronologically organized, suspenseful tale. And the tragedy of its
outcome is, if anything, heightened. It begins at the end of the second world
war, with the surrender of the Japanese forces in Malaya. Ferris, Ng and Dhana
appear together as victorious fighters in the Malayan resistance against the
Japanese. They are joined by friendship and a common cause. The screenplay
differs in other significant respects from the novel. Ferris is American, not
Australian (perhaps to accommodate the obviously American persona of the actor,
William Holden?). The character of Dhana is greatly developed by comparison to
her role in the novel. In the film she is Ferris’ mistress. Though Ng has a
love interest in her, she returns only a platonic friendship for Ng. However,
Ng and Ferris are bonded by a good friendship. But they separate at the war’s
end. Ng goes to Moscow for training in communist ideology. Ferris starts a
rubber plantation in Malaya, where he lives with Dhana, and over the years he
grows wealthy.

When war begins between communist
insurgents and the British, Ferris is sought by the British for help with Ng,
However, Ferris refuses to inform against his friend. Ng, for his part, wants
Ferris to help the communists – a condition which Ferris also refuses.
Meanwhile Ferris makes the acquaintance of Candace, who, in the film, is the
daughter of Trumpey, the British governor. In fact Candace is attracted to
Ferris, but Ferris remains loyal to Dhana.

As in the novel, Dhana is
sympathetic to the rights of the Malaysian people and organizes demonstrations
on their behalf. Things get worse when terrorists make a grenade attack on the
guests invited to a ball at the governor’s Residency. In the screenplay, this
attack is the direct motivation for the British destruction of a Malay village
and resettlement of its people. Dhana, sickened by this act, wants to migrate
to the jungle to join the guerillas, but is arrested and imprisoned when a
hollowed durian fruit containing grenades is discovered on her bicycle. Her
insistence that she did not know the grenades were there falls on deaf ears.

In the film, the arrest and
condemnation of Dhana is a pivotal event and focal point. The police,
knowing
that Ferris knows where Ng’s camp is, try to persuade him to reveal this
information in return for Dhana’s life. They try to make the same sort
of deal
with Dhana herself. Neither Ferris nor Dhana will betray Ng. Candace’s
appeal
to her father for Dhana is also in vain, since Trumpey insists he can do
nothing without Ferris of Dhana yielding to conditions. Candace sets out
in the
jungle to find Ng to appeal to him to save Dhana, but instead she is
captured
by him. Then Ng publishes announcements to the effect that Candace will
die, if
Dhana is put to death. Ferris also sets out in search of Ng to make his
own
appeal to Ng to yield himself to save Dhana. Here there is even a note
of false
hope, because Ferris gains a promise from a British police chief of a
few days’
extension in the date of Dhana’s execution, so Ferris has more time to
find Ng
-- but this hope is destroyed because the British officer is
assassinated in a
terror attack before he can institute the promised delay. Things rush to
a grim conclusion when British troop destroy Ng’s camp, Ng escapes with
his
hostage Candace - only to be surprised and disarmed by Ferris. They
start
back.Ng, in attempt to break free, is
shot by Candace. Dying, Ng confesses he planted the grenades in the hollowed
fruit on Dhana’s bicycle, believing that her conviction would alienate the
Malayan people irrevocably from the British. Ferris, horrified by Ng’s placing
his cause above the level of Dhana’s life, feels his friendship for Ng
destroyed just as Ng loses his life.

They finally return, but too late
to save Dhana from the death sentence. Ferris, a changed and embittered man,
decides to leave Malaya – the land he once thought he never could leave.

The film version seems to make a
statement that loyalty to friends and individual human beings is more important
than loyalty to causes. According to this criterion, Ng fails, while Dhana,
Ferris and even Candace succeed.

There is no way to determine
whether the script that was actually translated to film deviates in any details
from the final script written by Karl Tunberg, who, after disagreements with
Feldman, the director Gilbert and some others, left the project on his own
initiative half-way through production. These disagreements seem, at least in
part, to have concerned issues of casting.